Solutions for Digital Media and Broadcasting

In digital media and broadcasting, many tasks must be accomplished from ingesting raw content, editing, mastering, broadcasting and archiving a completed work. This workflow is includes creating, duplicating, transferring, storing, securing and archiving data.

Overland-Tandberg offers a comprehensive portfolio and provides a complete set of digital media storage solutions for all of these workflow steps.

The post production workflow

Post production is a multi-task process that takes raw video and sound elements through mastering. On the front of this process is offloading original content from expensive camera storage so it may be deployed again in production. Also multiple copies of the content are needed to support the various editing workflow, distribution to producers and data protection.

Many times Tape and/or external disk storage is used to distribute films or movie sequences. Care must be taken to choose high quality storage products that are designed to withstand the rigors of transportation including drop protection, vibration and electrostatic discharge.

Overland Tandberg’s RDX® QuikStor™ removable disk is a perfect high value solution for post-production workflow and footage distribution. Random access and native file system operation makes it simple for content management. The rugged design ensures reliable operation throughout the post production process. RDX is designed to withstand drops, shocks, vibration and static and is ideal for transporting data from the set to the editing studios.

The RDX USB3+ external drive simply connects via a USB3.0 cable to almost any system without compatibility issues. It is a portable device and can be easily used directly at the outdoor set for transferring the video sequences from camera storage. RDX drives are future proof and include compatibility with the newest RDX media, which are currently availabe as HDD and SSD offerings.

Asset Consolidation

As movie sequences and footages need to be consolidated from multiple sources and needed to processed in parallel, RDX® QuikStation™ is a capable alternative. The RDX QuikStation is a removable disk array with 8 RDX drives and connects via iSCSI into existing networks. With native file system operation, RDX storage technology easily integrates into Media Asset Management (MAM) systems. Each RDX drive is a single iSCSI target and is presented as a local disk drive to the server, which is recognized by the MAM application.

Editorial and Mastering

Finalizing digital content is very often a time critical task. Video sequences aren‘t coming in on time from the editing studios, so mastering has to be finished at last minute and work has to be done till late at night. Therefore, it is important to have fast access to all sequences within the media asset management system to get work done immediately.

In addition, daily production generates a huge amount of video sequences. Files are coming in unpredictable. So it is very important to be able to expand storage capacity on demand and without interruption.

Overland-Tandberg‘s SnapServer Flash Array is a NAS system which fulfills these requirements. SnapServer Flash Array can be fully equipped with SSD drives and offers high throughput for fast video processing. The DynamicRAID® feature allows automatic capacity expansion and thin provisioning without manual intervention. The built-in SnapECR replication feature offers a disaster recovery solution at no extra cost.

Securing the video workflow

In the digital media and broadcasting realm, backup copies and archiving is mandatory to secure and protect valuable assets. Backup and Archiving are different tasks. While backup secures data and is used for restore of files, folders or systems for version history or after data loss, archiving is used to store data long term and/or for regulatory compliance requirements. Many times tape is used for archive due to the low media cost and high reliability and transport capability. Inexpensive offsite tape copies support an added level of protection.

Very often, footage is reused and edited for new productions. Keeping all versions on production storage can cause exponential and difficult to manage data growth. Archiving obsolete assets to tape with tape drives or tape automation solutions can free up production disk capacity, optimize software processing, and shorten production backup windows. LTO technology with LTFS provides for an industry standardized tape format for all digital asset managers.

Tandberg Data/Overland Storage tape and tape automation solutions come from 30 years of experience that ensures strength and high reliability is designed in. The Latest LTO technology and enterprise class robotics bring high performance and durability. Asset managers can choose tape connectivity alternatives including SAS, Fibre Channel, and Thunderbolt (with Fibre Channel to Thunderbolt bridges) along with superior service and support included.